Perugia

We were packed into our tiny bus by nine, and by ten we were chugging up a mountain road outside of Perugia lined with vines and cisto and ginestra, our driver blowing his horn at every curve. Shortly we were at the farm where our energetic and talkative hostess Raffaella lives with her saxophonist husband, children and mother-in-law Alberta. We did not meet Alberta but she seems as energetic and hardworking as Raffaella; Alberta planted 780 of the farm’s 850 olive trees and she still produces the farm’s supplies of olive oil, wine, vegetables and jam. Raffaella runs the cooking school, operates the B&B, takes care of the chickens and who knows what other perpetual motion activities. Her mission for the day was to guide eighteen of us in cooking a four-course Umbrian special occasion meal using traditional recipes, methods, ingredients and plenty of garlic and olive oil. In the main room of her farmhouse we donned red aprons and, since she said she’d never had such a big group before, posed for a picture for her Facebook page (check it out and let me know, Facebook people, as I am not one of the in crowd). 

We started by chopping tomatoes and scamorza cheese (scamorza meaning “stupid head” or something like that because of its lumpy shape) for the eggplant appetizer. There was more chopping of guanciale (bacony pork cheeks) and asparagus for the pasta sauce, and shallots and big grapes to mix with juniper berries, salt, pepper, bay leaves and vino (and olive oil, of course) for succulently simmering the pork tenderloins. Then we created the dough for the crostata (“a difficult cake,” said Raffaella), requiring much chastisement for our careless and maladroit handling of it. At last it was time for making the pasta: flour and eggs, a dash of olive oil and a pinch of salt, mixed properly and kneaded strongly until the dough “feels right,” rolled out and passed through the pasta machine to ever thinner thicknesses, then cranked through a final time to cut into tagliatelle strips and piled, lightly floured, on a tray until there looked to be enough to feed an army. Raffaella moved from group to group, adding her expert hands, correcting. Suddenly she shouted, “Who plays music? We have a piano here! Let’s have some music while we work!” and since no one else volunteered, I did, but only because Maurice made me and because before we left on our trip I had bought an app to store sheet music on my iPad, downloaded a few songs with Maurice’s help and wanted to see if I could really play from it. The piano was out of tune (as sidelined pianos tend to be), I had the wrong glasses and page turning was tricky but there was my music on the iPad and it was fun playing. Competing with the buzz of happy chatter and the racket of cranking pasta machines, mingling with the aroma of juniper-grapey tenderloins and freshly-baked cherry crostatas, came out-of-tune and hesitant-on-page-turn notes carrying afresh the truth, “Lord, I need you, oh, I need you; every hour I need you,” and there He was in the delight of the moment.

The eggplant millefoglie was assembled, the handmade pasta was cooked, the grapes and juniper berries were pressed into a lovely pink sauce for the juicy tenderloin, wine was poured and lunch was served. I think we ate it all. Maurice and I were at a table for six in the smaller room, and when our table of hearty eaters had finished our allotment of pasta, Raffaella brought in the leftovers from the table of twelve. Dessert was even better. Each table got one cherry crostata, and by the time the big table realized they were only getting half portions and sent an emissary to collect our leftovers, we were passing out seconds (we repented later).

Stuffed to the gills, we took off our aprons, packed up our recipes (because you know each one of us is going to cook this again at home), bought some jam, wine and olive oil, and repacked our wider girths into the little bus for a quick drive to Perugia proper and a fascinating walking tour of the old town.